A little wood gloat

[Alan Trout]

Here is sort of a gloat, this is some wood I drug home today. Most of it is pecan some Spanish oak and some silver maple. I live in the inner city and our city does free brush collection once a quarter for every section of the city. In the poorer sections of town when brush collection comes to their area everyone starts cutting down dead or dying trees because the brush collection saves a substantial amount of money over hauling it off yourself to the dump or brush collection site. Also the older sections of town have the mature trees. It is not often that I get a shot at big wood.

This is all I could get because of size. The big piece of pecan is 33" across and weighs around 400lbs and several other pieces are around 200lbs. There were sections of that pecan that were over 4 feet across and could not even budge them so they did not come home. O well a pretty good haul. It will be a long weekend processing these logs. This was a dead standing tree so it is not as wet as it could be.

There was so much more big wood I just could not get it. Most was to heavy and in reality I do not have the room to store it. Well I will get finished with this wood and another brush collection will come along.

Alan

[Don Carter]

Alan:
I just returned a pecan bowl and it was hard as a rock. Someone here called it peconcrete...I agree with them. I think the next one, I will turn to final and let nature takes its course.
BTW, great gloat.

All the best.

Don

[Bill Bolen]

Now that is not "a little wood gloat" as your title indicates!! That a big'un. Congrats and can you feel the envy from here?,,Bill,,

[alex carey]

Nice gloat, Those are some big pieces. Let's see the roughouts.

[John Fricke]

Sounds like You need a big chainsaw so you can cut those big pieces into manageable size when you have the opportunity to score them. Congrats on the haul.

[David Christopher]

Alen, thats a nice haul...beware!!!! I bet that pecan is hard

[Leo Van Der Loo]

Wow Alan :)
Looks like you got some very nice pieces of wood there Alan, I hope you will be able to use them before they start to split on you, that would be a shame, good luck and happy turning :D

[Richard Madison]

Well done Alan, to save some of that nice wood. Am sure there is a turning club in San Antonio, and hope they know about all this nice wood.

Have turned a fair amount of dry pecan (some today) and do not find it to be particularly hard (esp. compared to a sharp gouge). The hard part is sanding, once the turning is done. Try for very smooth finish cuts with minimum tool marks and heel bruising. The latter especially is a pain to sand out. Or so I have been told.

Edit: Just remembered, sand slowly and pause frequently to avoid overheating the wood. It has a tendency to develop hairline cracks when overheated. Not sure where I heard this. Maybe my shop cat told me.

[Burt Alcantara]

Drool, drool, drool. Sorry.

How did you haul the 400# & 200#? It's all I can do to get 80# in my Jeep.

Burt

[Bernie Weishapl]

Congrats on a nice haul Alan. That ought to keep ya busy for a day or two.

[Alan Trout]

3 people and myself put the 400 pounder in the back of my truck. The 200lb on down I put in myself. Of course i was wearing short sleeve shirt so it looks like I was wrestling a raccoon, my arms are pretty dug up. I could use a larger chainsaw I have a 16" and 99+% of the time it is just fine but sometimes I wish I has a 20" saw. If I have to cut into blanks and seal the end grain that is what I will do. Some checks already but away from the pith they all look real good, And for the most part the pith is way off center so should get some real thick blanks out of them. I am hoping to get this cut up this week but may have to wait till this weekend.

Thanks,

Alan

[Jeff Nicol]

Alan, Like me free wood is good!! Great haul, but to bad about the really big stuff! I have a nifty trailer with a lift on it so I wish I was there! Not that I need any more wood but I can't help myself!

Have fun with your new stash!

Jeff

[Steve Schlumpf]

Great gloat Alan! Looks like you have some really nice wood! Looking forward to seeing what you turn out of it!

[Jarrod McGehee]

great gloat Alan. and that's a nice haul there. good luck with all of it.